A Clue

On the bus, Li Zhuiyuan tilted his head, watching the streetscape drift past outside the window and his own reflection in the glass. The woman who had appeared in the General Temple was indeed Ran Qiuping. Yet the dead-flipper beneath the general's statue was not Qiu Minmin. Qiu Minmin had already been battered by Li Zhuiyuan and his companions to the brink of collapse. No matter what method the entity controlling her used, it was impossible to restore her in such a short time. What role did the two fellow corpse retrievers in the temple play in all this? From the logic of his behavior, the young man seemed to be deliberately avoiding his master, which meant he was very likely the one backing and helping Ran Qiuping. Furthermore, just as Sun Hongxia had been brainwashed by Ran Qiuping, Ran Qiuping herself might well have been brainwashed into someone else's pawn. The threads of the incident were suddenly extended and stretched wide. Li Zhuiyuan was quite pleased with this development. The more people involved and the more complicated things became, the more interesting it was to handle. Only a tower of building blocks carefully stacked up brought a thrill when knocked down. Getting off at his stop, he was in no hurry to return to the dorm. Since Lu Yi had refused to take any money, the least Li Zhuiyuan could do was treat him to a meal. Because it was afternoon and still well before dinner, the Old Sichuan restaurant had no other customers yet. He picked a table and sat down, ordered several dishes, and asked for a bowl of seaweed and egg-drop soup. The food was served quickly. Li Zhuiyuan ate less than half a bowl of rice with the dishes, then focused on sipping the soup. Lu Yi ate heartily. Sichuan food went great with rice, and boys his age were in the prime of their appetites. After finishing, they stepped out of the restaurant. Wiping his mouth with a napkin, Lu Yi said, "Prodigy, next time you need anything, just call on me. No need to treat me to meals. You're being far too polite." "All right." Li Zhuiyuan told Lu Yi to head back to the dorm first while he went over to the campus clinic. The clinic consisted of two three-story buildings—one inside the campus and one outside. While nominally the campus clinic, it was also open to the surrounding neighborhood. Li Zhuiyuan saw Yin Meng standing by a corner, keeping watch over several bags of food and rice bought from outside. Incense sticks were planted in each of them, and she was waiting for them to burn down. Sharing a hospital ward made meals rather inconvenient for Runsheng. Without calling out to Yin Meng, Li Zhuiyuan walked upstairs on his own. Guided by the sound of snoring, the boy found the ward. Standing by the window, he saw Runsheng asleep in a hospital bed. Runsheng was recovering quickly. Some color had returned to his face, unlike the ghastly pallor of the night before. Li Zhuiyuan did not go inside. Instead, he leaned his back against the wall, rested his hands behind him, and raised his left foot against the plaster. The sun had not yet set, but the evening breeze was already impatient, starting its shift early to sweep past. Listening to the snores from within and feeling the breeze, the boy stood there for a long time. It was only when he caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of Yin Meng carrying the food mixed with incense ashes up the stairs that Li Zhuiyuan walked down the stairwell on the opposite side. Back at the dormitory, the dorm manager's office was still empty. It was summer break, and there were barely any people in the building. A dorm manager stepping away from her post was hardly a big deal; if anything, Ran Qiuping's prior presence had been the true anomaly. None of the other dorm buildings had a permanent dorm manager stationed there right now; at most, someone came by to check every few days. Returning to his room, Li Zhuiyuan looked at his and Tan Wenbin's luggage. Because Xue Liangliang had driven a truck to deliver their things, everyone's tools and gear were fully stocked. Yet this could also expose problems. Just like the old man he had seen at the General Temple earlier that day, there were times when keeping one's identity hidden made it much easier to act. Who said only those standing in the light could represent the Heavenly Dao? This was an issue. Once this matter was settled, the first thing to address would be concealing their gear and tools. After that, everyone's posture and bearing would also need early correction so that neither experienced practitioners nor ghosts could see right through them on the street. Li Zhuiyuan took a bundle of small flags from his luggage bag. The bottom of each flag pole was wrapped with adhesive tape that could be peeled and stuck in place. He then retrieved an ink-marker line and a brush tipped with special pigments. First, with his back against the dorm door, he held a luopan to sight and calculate up and down. Once the schematic was drawn in his mind, the boy began planting the flags. On the ceiling, on the walls, on the floor—he placed them everywhere. Then he snapped lines with the ink marker and used the brush to dot and trace patterns with cinnabar and other ingredients. Finally, he placed a stool in a specific position and stood a bronze mirror upon it, its reflective surface facing the dorm door. The bronze mirror had been given to him by Ah Li back then, likely belonging to Granny Liu originally. It could not have been more suitable as the array's core. The next thing that needed a disguise was these array flags. When Tan Wenbin had time later, he would have Binbin buy some national flags from various countries to wrap over them. That way, even if outsiders saw them, they would not think anyone was practicing feudal superstition, merely assuming college students were showing off their quirks in their dorm room. Just then, the sound of slippers came from the hallway. Li Zhuiyuan recognized the gait; it was Lu Yi. Lu Yi knocked on the door. Li Zhuiyuan intentionally made no sound. A moment later, Lu Yi opened the door himself. He was carrying two hot-water thermoses. The moment he stepped inside, light and shadow flickered before his eyes, and he instantly lost all sense of direction, completely forgetting where he was. From Li Zhuiyuan's perspective, Lu Yi was simply spinning in circles on the spot with two thermoses in hand. The boy adjusted the angle of the bronze mirror. Lu Yi blinked in confusion, merely assuming he had spaced out for a moment. "Hey, what did I come here for again?" Then he remembered: "Prodigy, I went down to the boiler room and fetched a thermos of hot water for you. Here." "Thanks, Brother Lu." "No need to thank me, it was on my way." Lu Yi set the thermos in a corner, then glanced at the small flags planted around the room and the painted patterns. "Prodigy, what are you doing here?" "There's a ghost in the dorm." "Ah! I've still got things to do. Going back to prep my lessons!" Lu Yi immediately grabbed his other thermos and bolted out of the room, shutting the door behind him. In truth, his was the normal reaction of an ordinary person facing the supernatural. The Tan Wenbin of the past had been the outlier. Taking a washbasin to the sinks to rinse off, Li Zhuiyuan returned to the room, turned the mirror back to face the door, and got into bed to sleep. Before drifting off, he recalled the fragmented memories he had read the previous night when trying to manipulate Qiu Minmin. They had been completely piecemeal—static images with no continuity at all. At the time, he had assumed it was simply Qiu Minmin's nature; only later did he realize she was merely another entity's chang ghost. This meant that the memory fragments he had read were not only of no practical use, but might even be misleading. As a mere puppet, a minion spirit possessed very little self to begin with. Early the next morning, as soon as Li Zhuiyuan woke up, he heard the sound of running footsteps in the hallway. It was Tan Wenbin. After a brief hesitation, Li Zhuiyuan turned the bronze mirror away, even though he knew Tan Wenbin would clamor to test its mettle the moment he walked in. Tan Wenbin pushed open the door, holding a case file in one hand and breakfast in the other. "Hey, Brother Yuan, is this the security access you set up?" "Yeah." "Why isn't it working?" "I turned it off." "Why turn it off? You should've let me give it a shot." "Business first." "Fine, fine, fine." Tan Wenbin sat down, and the two split the case file between them as they ate breakfast. "My dad pulled some strings for me. Hey, you'd never guess, but my dad actually has connections." "I remember you saying he was transferred to a township police station later on." "Yeah, supposedly because he made a mistake." "What mistake?" "A son doesn't speak ill of his father." "You didn't dare ask?" "You've never experienced how much punch my dad put into his leather belt back then. When I watched Bruce Lee movies as a kid and saw him swinging nunchaku, the person I pictured was my old man." "Look over the materials." Li Zhuiyuan swapped his half with Tan Wenbin's. By the time Tan Wenbin had only finished reading the identity details of one witness while eating two steamed buns, the boy leaned back in his chair and gently tapped his fingertips against the tabletop. "Wait, brother, I spent a whole day and night busting my tail to get this file, and you finished reading it just like that?" "Yeah." "No wonder my dad once said you should've been a criminal investigator." Li Zhuiyuan closed his eyes, reorganizing the case details in his mind. Zhao Junfeng had sexually assaulted and murdered Qiu Minmin late at night in a classroom building's restroom. There were three eyewitnesses—one male and two females named Wu Xinhui, Liu Xinya, and Zhu Hongyu. The three of them had originally been rehearsing a dance drama with Qiu Minmin in an empty lecture hall. Partway through, Qiu Minmin went to use the restroom, pausing the rehearsal. When she failed to return after a long time, the three went to the restroom to look for her, only to see Zhao Junfeng rushing out in a panic. The two girls entered the restroom and discovered that Qiu Minmin had been violated and murdered. After the incident, the campus security division and the student union mobilized to apprehend Zhao Junfeng. They spotted him near West Lake—the very lake where Tan Wenbin had gone for his night run on their first evening. Zhao Junfeng injured several students before fleeing campus. The police intervened and launched a manhunt, eventually locating Zhao Junfeng near Jiangjun Mountain. The student union was mobilized to join the search as well. In the end, Zhao Junfeng held Wu Xinhui hostage with a dagger. During the standoff, the police fired. Wu Xinhui was rescued, and Zhao Junfeng fell into the river after being shot. It took three days of dragging the water to recover his corpse. Because there were three witnesses, and Zhao Junfeng had clearly resisted, fled, and fought arrest, the case was closed very quickly. Li Zhuiyuan asked, "Is the student union in college usually that active?" Tan Wenbin finished the last gulp of soy milk and nodded. "Seems like it. They recruit new members once the semester starts, but Brother Liang told me not to waste my time." "Oh?" "Brother Liang said that the dregs of domestic bureaucratic culture are concentrated in student unions. Aside from a few heads who get to brown-nose teachers and leaders for perks and throw their weight around in front of younger students to satisfy their craving for authority, regular students only get dragged in to do odd jobs and haul tables and chairs." "The file says Wu Xinhui was the president of the student union that year." "Yeah, I saw that." "And Zhao Junfeng was Qiu Minmin's pursuer. He even laid out candles outside the girls' dorm to confess his feelings, but got rejected." "Brother Yuan, put it this way: if I were just reading this file normally, I wouldn't see anything wrong with the case. But now that Qiu Minmin has turned into a dead-flipper and things have reached this point, I feel like there's definitely more to this story than meets the eye." "Mm." "So should we go investigate these three witnesses next? We'll need Brother Liang for that. Even though he hadn't enrolled yet when the crime happened, he has broad connections and can ask around campus. We could also track down the officer who fired the shot to get more details on what happened back then." "There's no need," Li Zhuiyuan said, shaking his head. "We're not here to investigate a case. We don't have to follow a standard procedure." With that, Li Zhuiyuan told Tan Wenbin about what he had discovered at the General Temple the previous day. "Brother Yuan, you mean we go straight after Ran Qiuping?" "Not just Ran Qiuping, but also those two fellow practitioners in the General Temple." "Then we'll have to wait until Runsheng recovers a bit more. From what you described, Yin Meng and I probably aren't a match for that old corpse retriever." "Still, I don't want to wait too long. A long delay brings many complications." Li Zhuiyuan glanced back at the "security access" he had set up. "Just because you can't beat him in an open fight doesn't mean I'm sending you to duel him in a fair ring." "Aha, right!" Tan Wenbin caught his meaning. "Then we don't need to worry about being outmatched." Just then, Tan Wenbin's pager beeped. He ran out to find a phone to return the call, then hurried back: "Brother Yuan, Brother Liang says he and Engineer Luo are back. They're inviting us to dinner at the Lijing Restaurant downtown at seven tonight. Are we going?" "We're going. It's not like we're making our move tonight anyway. I still have to draft array diagrams..." "But you draw fast." "And you two still have to memorize them." "Oh, right, that really does take time. Especially for Yin Meng—she's so slow on the uptake." "Get some rest. You were up all night." "I'm fine." "You need to perform well tonight, so keep your energy up. Life, studies, retrieving dead-flippers—there's no need to deliberately sacrifice any of them. We can afford to take our time." "All right, I get it." Tan Wenbin knew what Li Zhuiyuan meant. Engineer Luo had only officially taken on Xue Liangliang and Li Zhuiyuan, not him yet. Earning Engineer Luo's favor would make his future academic life much easier. At the very least, it would prevent the awkward situation where Li Zhuiyuan and the others accompanied Engineer Luo on scientific field expeditions to other provinces while he was left behind alone, cramming for final exams. Tan Wenbin went to sleep in his bunk, while Li Zhuiyuan sat at the desk and drew two array diagrams. If the ancestors of the Qi clan knew that the secret imperial tomb arts passed down through their lineage were being simplified by him for street brawls, they would probably crawl out of their coffins in outrage. However, this kind of hastily arranged secret array had obvious shortcomings: first, it didn't last long, and second, the thing couldn't tell friend from foe. This was precisely why Tan Wenbin and Yin Meng needed to memorize the positions beforehand. Otherwise, if they stepped into the fight and suffered the exact same debuffs as the enemy, what would be the point of the array? After finishing the diagrams, Li Zhuiyuan began drawing position charts. Once the charts were done, he wrote mnemonic chants to help them memorize, making sure they rhymed. In this regard, Runsheng was actually the most cooperative. There was, of course, a more direct method—to borrow the dead-flipper beneath the general's statue. But that option was far too risky. Before confirming the identity of that corpse, Li Zhuiyuan dared not borrow that wind. If it triggered some chain reaction, the Heavenly Dao would once again settle the account on his head. Around noon, Tan Wenbin woke up. "Brother Yuan, how long did I sleep?" "A few hours. You can sleep a bit more." "No, that's enough. I caught a few naps last night too, so I'm not that tired." Tan Wenbin climbed out of bed. "I'll go grab some food from the store and check on Sun Hongxia while I'm at it." "Sun Hongxia can be released." "Huh? Won't she go report us to the police for unlawful confinement?" "Then we can tell the officers that she stole money from our shop and turned around to make false accusations." "Good reason." Tan Wenbin thought it over and found it airtight. "She won't go to the police. If she were the type to call them, she would've done so the first time she saw a ghost." Li Zhuiyuan tapped his forehead. "She only looks normal, but her mind is already broken." "Oh, so that's how it is." "And tell her there are hidden circumstances in her son's case." "Brother Yuan, you really are kind." Li Zhuiyuan: "..." After Tan Wenbin left, Li Zhuiyuan poured himself a cup of hot water from the thermos. Blowing on the rim, he muttered to himself: "She's going to lose her mind." Entering the discount store, Tan Wenbin went straight down to the basement, unlocked the door, and saw Sun Hongxia tied up inside. Little Black was also in the room, keeping a watchful eye on her. Sun Hongxia seemed entirely lifeless. After Tan Wenbin untied her, she went numbly to the restroom, came out to eat and drink, and then knelt by the bedside, waiting to be bound and gagged again. "You can go." Sun Hongxia looked up at Tan Wenbin in disbelief. "We looked into it. There should be hidden circumstances in your son's case." Sun Hongxia froze. The worldview of ordinary people was sometimes complicated, yet sometimes remarkably simple. Initially, Sun Hongxia had stayed at the school purely with the mindset of atoning for sin. After seeing the ghostly apparition of Qiu Minmin and hearing Ran Qiuping's words, she had become all the more convinced of her role as an atoner. Yet in Sun Hongxia's eyes, this group of people who could fight ghosts without losing was clearly extraordinary. Even though they had detained, intimidated, and interrogated her, she believed what they said. *Hidden circumstances in my son's case?* *Does that mean... my son was framed?* Sun Hongxia's gaze slowly drifted downward, landing on the boy's portrait resting on the small stool offering table. "No, no, no... how could this be? How could this be!" Sun Hongxia shrieked, then grabbed her son's portrait and clutched it to her chest. Watching this, Tan Wenbin suddenly realized that his earlier words—"Brother Yuan, you really are kind"—had been spoken far too soon. "My son was framed! My son was framed!" The fanatic mentality of an atoner was already an extremely unstable state. The longer it was repressed, the more desperately she would claw her way up if a single rope was dropped down to her, no matter the cost. Clutching the portrait, Sun Hongxia dashed out of the room. By the time Tan Wenbin chased after her, she had already bolted from the shop. She ran first toward Building 9, likely looking for Ran Qiuping. Unable to find anyone, she ran back out, her hair disheveled as she fled toward other parts of the campus. Tan Wenbin felt a chill run down his spine. He realized that Sun Hongxia was merely a piece of bait Brother Yuan had casually tossed out. Locking the shop and carrying the food, he returned to the dorm. "Brother Yuan, Sun Hongxia ran off. She looked completely mad." "Mm." "Should I keep an eye on her?" "No need. Let her be." Li Zhuiyuan handed over some sheets of paper. "Copy a set for yourself first, then take one to Yin Meng. Remember, memorize it on the basis of understanding it. In a fight, an opponent won't be stupid enough to step only on standard grid squares." "Got it." Tan Wenbin took them and began copying. He sat bolt upright, utterly focused. Even when his dad had watched him do homework with a leather belt beside him, it had never been this effective. Once he finished copying, Tan Wenbin ran to the clinic ward. He greeted Runsheng and checked on his recovery, then called Yin Meng outside to hand her the materials and pass along the instructions. "Binbin left?" "Yeah. Take an afternoon nap; I'm going out to catch some air." "Is Little Yuan about to make a move?" "Even if he is, we have to wait until you recover. Without you, this team of ours can't function." "In this team, aside from Little Yuan, no one is indispensable." Runsheng reached out to touch his bandaged wound. "It was my fault. You and Binbin need to protect Little Yuan well." "All right, that's in the past. Your job right now is to heal properly." Seeing that Runsheng had already figured it out, Yin Meng stopped hiding it and brought out the paper. "I have all this to memorize. Not just memorize, but understand." Runsheng said, "Then hurry up and memorize it. You're slow on the uptake, so don't waste time." Yin Meng: "..." *** At dusk, Li Zhuiyuan and Tan Wenbin hailed a taxi at the school gate and headed for the restaurant. Li Zhuiyuan sat in the back, while Tan Wenbin took the front passenger seat. The entire way, Tan Wenbin kept silently chanting various hexagram terms under his breath. The driver glanced at him repeatedly. When they arrived at the restaurant and got out, the driver collected the fare and asked, "Young man, which temple around here is the most efficacious? I'd like to go pay my respects too." After entering the restaurant, Tan Wenbin recounted the driver's reaction to Li Zhuiyuan like a joke. "Yuan, do you think if I had put on more airs in the cab and offered the driver some pointers, he would've waived the fare?" "He only half-believed you because you didn't give pointers and paid the fare without hesitation." "Oh, true enough." Even though the two had arrived early, they were still the last to show up. Engineer Luo and the others had likely been holding an administrative meeting at the hotel all along. Once they entered, Xue Liangliang warmly introduced Li Zhuiyuan and Tan Wenbin to everyone present. When Li Zhuiyuan swept his gaze across the room, his eyes narrowed slightly. Tan Wenbin, however, was thoroughly immersed in the atmosphere, for everyone seated was a university leader or teacher. When Xue Liangliang introduced Zhu Hongyu, the secretary to the university president, Tan Wenbin merely thought she had an air of elegance and looked faintly familiar. When he introduced Liu Xinya, the counselor for their class, Tan Wenbin felt like he had heard the name somewhere before. Finally, when Xue Liangliang introduced Zhu Hongyu's husband, Wu Xinhui, who worked in the university logistics department, Tan Wenbin was startled. He finally remembered: Weren't these three the exact three eyewitnesses from the case file?! Tan Wenbin immediately turned his head to look at Li Zhuiyuan, only to find the boy wearing a polite, bashful smile as he returned the greetings of all the teachers and leaders present. *Did Little Yuan not notice?* No, even Tan Wenbin's brain had retained the names—there was no way Li Zhuiyuan could have forgotten. Engineer Luo sat at the head of the table, leaving several university leaders to sit beside him. The banter over drinks made it plain how much respect and deference everyone accorded him. "I personally went to Nantong to specially recruit Zhuiyuan. I plan to instruct him myself. You don't need to worry about his academics—I have a whole box of his completed graduation designs in my study, haha." Being a good friend, Xue Liangliang poured wine for their teacher while reminding him in a low voice, "And Binbin too." "Ah, yes, Binbin too." Engineer Luo had an impression of Tan Wenbin. In any case, his projects always had reserved spots for personal recommendations; giving one away was the same regardless of who received it. Often, what seemed like an impossibly rare favor from the heavens was just a single casual word from someone close. He wouldn't embarrass his beloved apprentices over something like that. At the table, everyone conversed cheerfully. Li Zhuiyuan knew that the greatest benefit of this gathering for him was that he could skip classes whenever he pleased in the future. He had already completed the undergraduate curriculum for his major anyway. As for Advanced Mathematics and General Physics, they were no different from high school material in his eyes. Beyond that, Li Zhuiyuan gathered from the table talk that Zhu Hongyu was the granddaughter of the former university president, while Liu Xinya had stayed on as faculty right after graduation. Neither had ever really left the campus. Only Wu Xinhui had ventured out to start a business after graduating. During the meal, a faculty dean pretended to be tipsy and sarcastically addressed him as "Boss Wu," making Wu Xinhui's face flush crimson. He had likely failed in business and used his wife's connections to recently return to a post at the university. In other words, all three of them were currently back on campus. This seemed to be a triggering condition. So Li Zhuiyuan and his group had basically stumbled in just as the volcano was about to erupt, only to get splattered by the lava. Though the volcano had taken a hard counter-blow from them in return and wasn't doing well either. Cases could be complicated at times, but if the victim of every homicide could speak—or express themselves in another form—the police would certainly have a much easier job. Naturally, Li Zhuiyuan did not ask whether anything strange had happened around them recently, nor did he casually bring up the case from seven years ago. He simply drank his juice at the table, playing his current part well. After the banquet dispersed, Liu Xinya, as their upcoming counselor, came over specifically to check on them and left her contact information. Zhu Hongyu and her husband, Wu Xinhui, also approached. Zhu Hongyu asked whether Li Zhuiyuan was interested in representing the university in collegiate competitions, while Wu Xinhui made a show of inquiring about their daily life, patting his chest and declaring they could come straight to him if they ran into any trouble. Li Zhuiyuan responded to all of them with polite warmth. Engineer Luo was tired, but he forced himself through his exhaustion to offer a few words of guidance, essentially saying that once he finished his current workload and launched his next project, he would bring Little Yuan along. This time, Li Zhuiyuan took Tan Wenbin by the hand, prompting Engineer Luo to remember and add once more: "Oh, right, and Binbin too." Xue Liangliang escorted Engineer Luo upstairs to his room to sleep, as there was another meeting here the next day. Soon, Xue Liangliang came back down and saw the two to the hotel entrance. "Are you two hiding something from me?" Li Zhuiyuan shook his head. Tan Wenbin shook his head vigorously. Xue Liangliang pointed at Tan Wenbin. "I can't read Little Yuan's expressions, but back at the table, you clearly had something heavy on your mind." "I haven't read my course textbooks yet. I'm anxious." "I'm not buying that nonsense. Still, I'm genuinely swamped right now and can't get away. Later on, though—if anything comes up in the future, you can't keep it from me." Li Zhuiyuan smiled. Tan Wenbin nodded in agreement. "All right." "See? You really are hiding something from me." Tan Wenbin spread his hands. "Brother Liang, you can't just pick on me." "Fine, fine. I'm going back up to help the professor organize the meeting files. Stay safe, both of you." Li Zhuiyuan and Tan Wenbin took a cab back to the university. Walking through the campus, Tan Wenbin asked, "Little Yuan, now that all three eyewitnesses are back at school, what about our plan...?" "Unchanged," Li Zhuiyuan replied without a second thought. "We were the ones attacked. Striking back is completely justified." "If I pull another all-nighter tonight, I'll have it completely memorized. Yin Meng is slower, but give her tomorrow daytime and she'll manage too." "Then we make our move tomorrow night." "Awesome!" The two entered the dormitory building. Just as they reached the third floor, they heard the strumming of a guitar. "Oho, quite artistic." "It's Lu Yi's room." Li Zhuiyuan remembered him mentioning that he knew how to play the guitar. Normally, the two wouldn't have bothered checking it out. But as they passed Lu Yi's door, they simultaneously heard something else accompanying the guitar melody—the rhythmic clicking of high heels pacing to the rhythm. Either Lu Yi had brought a woman back to the men's dorm—rare, but not unheard of—or Lu Yi was wearing high heels while playing the guitar, which would be quite the peculiar hobby. Then there was a third possibility... "Knock on the door." Tan Wenbin stepped forward and knocked. *Thump, thump, thump!* The guitar continued, but the tapping of the high heels abruptly quickened. *Thump, thump, thump!* The guitar kept playing as the high heels hurried straight toward the dorm door, the *clack-clack* growing closer and closer. Finally, *Bang!* "Holy crap!" The door was kicked open, knocking Tan Wenbin flat onto the floor. Standing inside the doorway was none other than Lu Yi, wearing only a pair of blue-and-white boxers and high heels, clutching a guitar in his hands. However, from the earlier collision, the guitar had visibly caved in. Tan Wenbin: "Wait, bro, what kind of getup is this?" "He's possessed by a spirit affliction." Only then did Tan Wenbin notice that although Lu Yi's eyes were wide open, his gaze was vacant, as if sleepwalking. The next instant, Lu Yi bolted toward the western end of the hallway to escape. "Stop him!" Tan Wenbin lunged forward, grabbing Lu Yi's hairy legs. Lu Yi pitched forward and hit the ground. *Thud! Thud!* "Ouch!" Two kicks from the high heels slammed squarely into Tan Wenbin's chest. Tan Wenbin let out a grunt of pain but did not let go. Instead, he seized the waistband of Lu Yi's shorts, yanked himself upward, and locked his arms and legs into a grapple! "Hah!" With a heave, Tan Wenbin rolled Lu Yi over, taking the bottom position while pinning Lu Yi on top. Lu Yi began to thrash, but with his primary joints locked, his struggles looked more like an upturned turtle flailing on its shell. Li Zhuiyuan reached into his pocket, smeared black dog blood onto his fingertips, and swiftly stepped up to Lu Yi. Bending down, he pressed his thumb against the man's forehead and dragged it downward in a smooth stroke! Alternating his five fingers, he drew a red line down Lu Yi's torso. Lu Yi immediately began to convulse, frothing at the mouth. At that moment, the high heels slipped off Lu Yi's feet and began to scurry away on their own with a rapid *clack-clack-clack*. *You escaped once last time. How could I let you get away again!* Li Zhuiyuan's gaze sharpened: Yin Family Twelve Arts: Ferrying Across the Bridge. In Li Zhuiyuan's sight, the figure of a young woman materialized above the high heels, frantically trying to flee. Yet the harder she ran, the further backward she was pulled. No matter how desperately she struggled, she could not alter the momentum. She kept looking back at the boy standing there. His eyes were deep and devoid of emotion. Ferrying Across the Bridge, true to its name, was meant to send off souls and dispel evil spirits—effectively banishing dirty things as far away as possible to produce an exorcism effect. Yet Li Zhuiyuan was running it in reverse, forcibly dragging the unclean thing toward himself. Perhaps even the long-deceased Yin Fuhai had never imagined that his family's ancestral technique could be used like this! Tan Wenbin had no incense or incantations to walk the yin path right now, so he naturally could not see the girl. But he could see the pair of high heels, which had been scurrying away, now walking backward toward them. He shoved Lu Yi off him, reaching into his pocket with his left hand for the vermilion inkpad, his mind already rehearsing a sequence of suave moves. Perhaps because his biceps were overly developed, things went wrong on the very first step. His grip slipped, and the inkpad container fell. *Crack!* The box shattered, spilling red ink all over the floor. Tan Wenbin paused for only a fraction of a second before thrusting both hands toward the floor, scooping up a generous helping of red paste. Forgetting all about hand seals, he simply went for maximum volume, slathering black dog blood madly over the high heels. From Li Zhuiyuan's perspective, Tan Wenbin was sprawled on the ground, his blood-red hands vigorously kneading the girl's calves. Blending reality with the yin vision, Zhuangzhuang looked rather indecent. The girl opened her mouth in a soundless scream of agony. Her legs began to melt away as if consumed by fire. One had to admit, a pure five-black dog raised on tonic herbs really lived up to its reputation. Even applied like this, its black dog blood was extraordinarily effective at dispelling evil. The girl prostrated herself in Li Zhuiyuan's direction, begging for mercy. By then, the flames had burned up to her thighs. Tan Wenbin seemed to feel he didn't have enough blood on his hands and reached toward the spill to scoop up more. "Binbin, that's enough. That will do." "Huh?" Tan Wenbin shook his hands and nodded. "All right." Li Zhuiyuan walked over, picking up the high heels that had been black but were now stained crimson. "Carry Lu Yi back to his bed." "Got it." Tan Wenbin hoisted the shivering Lu Yi onto his shoulder and carried him into his dorm room. Li Zhuiyuan took the high heels back to his own room. Placing the heels on the desk, he pulled open a drawer, gripped the purple leather whip in his hand, and pulled out a chair to sit down. He faced the high heels—or more precisely, the girl who had lost her lower half, her torso standing upright upon the desk. As she was now, she possessed the strange aesthetic of a broken sculpture. Li Zhuiyuan uncoiled the whip and flicked it lightly to his side. *Crack!* The girl trembled, crossing her arms in front of her chest in sheer terror. "I ask. You answer."